Elegy for the Four Chambers of My Brother’s Heart

We’re under the same moon and I’m sick

     with that knowing. I want to peel it away

like a bumper sticker. Thumbtack Jupiter

     to this storm-angry sky. Jupiter:

Wellbutrin pill tucked behind that dark cloud’s

     cauliflower ear. I listen for your name

in all this thunder. Shadows of  buildings

     sieve moonlight like a family quilt. The city

empties itself. Lightning stages this perfect

     vacancy like so many camera flashes.

For a moment, you are famous. Even god

     is looking for you.

ii

The sugarcanes we chewed grew

in runoff  water from the Tylenol factory.

Our daily hunt and gather, first stash

behind mom’s back. We jammed those

fibers between our cheeks and molars

like tobacco, found wild strawberries

big as a pugilist’s fist. You taught me how

to pitch rocks at the rainwater pond.

The slickest stones went farthest.

That was always the goal, right? To watch

their bodies revolve away from our own.

iii

To wake me up, you’d press

my tongue to the nipple

of  a AA battery. I press

my ear to the door

of  AA meetings. Was that

your voice I heard

rejoicing? I’d try anything

to be better than you.

Brother, give me your turmeric

chews, your sexual awakenings,

your coupons for muscle

-building milkshakes, your first

kiss. Give me your vouchers

for one free therapy session.

Shake out your boombox, please.

Press those D cells to my lips.

iv

You’re in a small room cutting

rugs. There’s no music playing, no ballad

troubling your movement. Your bony legs

cross each other like witching rods.

When you shimmy the mirrors blush.

You’ve never looked so alive, down

lit through the skylight. The stars

are pinholes hemorrhaging moonlight

through a bedsheet. In the dream,

you sashay to the wall of my mind,

waltz through so many handfuls

of  silence. You look gorgeous, spinning

the minute hand of a clock—forwards

or backwards, I can’t tell.